“Remora, Remora” by Thomas LuxPoetry 180: A Poem a Day for American High Schools, Hosted by Billy Collins, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2001-2003

Remora, Remora

Clinging to the shark
is a sucker shark,
attached to which
and feeding off its crumbs
is one still tinier,
inch or two,
and on top of that one,
one the size of a nick of gauze;
smaller and smaller
(moron, idiot, imbecile, nincompoop)
until on top of that
is the last, a microdot sucker shark,
a filament’s tip – with a heartbeat – sliced off,
and the great sea
all around feeding
his host and thus him.
He’s too small
to be eaten himself
(though some things swim
with open mouths) so
he just rides along in the blue current,
the invisible point of the pyramid,
the top beneath all else.

About the Poet

Thomas Lux (1946 - ) is the author of numerous poetry collections, including, Child Made of Sand (Houghton Mifflin, 2012). Born in Northampton, Massachusetts to working class parents, Lux attended Emerson College and the University of Iowa.